


a new beginning

by ohlookmywife



Series: all is not lost [1]
Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, QueenFreak
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25904365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohlookmywife/pseuds/ohlookmywife
Relationships: Joan Ferguson/Bea Smith
Series: all is not lost [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898722
Comments: 14
Kudos: 12





	1. a new beginning

“your true nature will eventually come out. It will have to.”

The Governor turns on her heel and strides out of the cell, leaving Bea standing alone in the center of it.

Bea closes her eyes, as a breath she didn’t realized she’d been holding rattles her body on exhale. She feels her knees wobble as the fading familiar click of heels on linoleum come to an abrupt halt.

“Coming?” Ferguson’s voice carries down the hallway, a slight reverberation on the upspeak.

It is phrased as a question, but it is, unquestionably, an order.

“Oh, now.” Bea says quietly, to herself.  
She takes a breath and quickly surveilles her cell before gathering herself and, raising her chin, striding into the hall, directly into the waiting gaze of Joan Ferguson.

Bea locks eyes with Joan, the stare pinning Bea where she stands, suddenly afraid she had misheard, that she is out of bounds, that she should have remained in place until a guard arrived to collect her.

“Yes. Now.” Joan responds, impatiently, agitatedly, unaccustomed to being made to wait.

Bea straightens her back and Joan’s face softens. Almost imperceptibly so.

She raises an eyebrow just before her heavy lidded eyes and long black eyelashes move down Bea’s form appraisingly, then snap back up to Bea’s face.

“Come on then,” she says, extending her left hand out to the side, instructing Bea to walk ahead through the open gate of bars.

Bea’s jumper is wadded up under her right arm, and she pulls it tighter to herself. _Chin up_ , Bea thinks, willing her shoulders back, so as not to let Ferguson perceive her as weak. She strides ahead.

The click of the heels returns as Bea suddenly gets the impression that Ferguson’s gaze is upon her, bearing down into her.  
She fights the urge to turn around, even as she keeps pace.

_Is she sizing me up?_

Heels click steadily.

_Is she… checking me out?_

That feeling of eyes upon you, undressing you, has haunted Bea intermittently since childhood. She remembers the very first time she felt it, as a teen, Debbie’s age, standing at the counter in Macca’s.  
She had spun on her espadrille to find the culprit, the creep, the perv, but there no one was there.

The sensation is undeniable, but, from that very first time, she believed she was imagining things.  
She probably is now, too. Ferguson is only trying to intimidate her, throw her weight around. And, if that isn't it, she doesn't want to call Ferguson on it.

Bea slows as they approach a locked door, and, as Ferguson pulls the ID badge at her waist to swipe the sensor, the sleeve of her wool blazer briskly brushes the flesh of Bea’s exposed bicep.

Bea’s hand instinctively reaches up to cup the skin as the door buzzes unlocked and Ferguson edges forward, pushing the door open, her chest grazing Bea’s shoulder as she leans in, her voice low, “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” her lips holding the shape of the “you,” her eyes looking unquestionably at Bea’s mouth, before relaxing into an expression that can only be described as _sinfully mirthful._

“I’m fine.” Bea says, resolutely.

_Not imagining it._

Bea passes through the doorway, and arrives at a fork in an administrative corridor.

“This way.” Ferguson says, striding past, turning left, taking the lead.

Bea follows obediently, slowing as they approach the door to Ferguson’s office. Again, Ferguson opens and holds the door.

Bea crosses the threshold, walking into the center of the office, and resting one hand on the back of one of the leather chairs opposite Ferguson’s desk. She pulls it back so as to --

“Don’t sit.” Ferguson orders.

A chill goes down Bea’s spine.

“Is that… Wild Orchid?”


	2. Chapter 2

Bea swallows hard as the door of Ferguson’s office closes and the latch seats itself squarely in the strike plate.

  
“It is.”

  
Ferguson smoothly cuts a path behind Bea as she strides towards her desk.

  
“That must be stabilizing. Access to creature comforts, even under these,” she gestures broadly, “circumstances. Gives one a sense of control...”

  
Bea is silent as Ferguson arrives at the power wielding side of the desk, and a moment passes as they regard one another.   
“ - even if it’s an illusion.” The left corner of Ferguson’s mouth twitches, suppressing a smirk.  
  
  
“So," she begins in earnest, taking a seat, "I’m releasing you back into General...” 

  
“Yes, and I appreciate that –“

  
“… conditionally.”

  
It hangs in the air.

  
“On what conditions?” Bea sets her jaw.

  
Joan leans back into the leather and considers, as if for the first time.  
She brings the tips of her fingers to meet, “You know, Smith, I think we would make a good team, you and I.”

  
Bea’s eyebrows raise incredulously.

  
“You aren’t what you think you are, Smith.”

  
“Oh, but you know what I am?”

  
“I understand you, Smith. You’re a loner. But it doesn’t pay to be a loner in here. That’s why people form alliances.”

  
“Who do you suggest I form an alliance with – you?”

  
“You’re vulnerable when you’re alone.”

  
“Well, I prefer to be alone. And respectfully, Ms. Ferguson, I don’t think you have the slightest idea wha-,” she corrects herself, “who I am.”

  
Joan smirks, regarding Bea carefully. She leans forward and places her elbows on the desktop, lacing her fingers, “perhaps you are right. Perhaps I have mis-“ she purses her lips and swivels slightly in her chair, word-finding, “mis- **Deb** …"  
she laughs at her own malapropism as if it weren't absolutely, undeniably, deliberate. "Excuse me, mis- **Read** … the situation.”

  
Ferguson’s eyes cut towards Bea’s without so much as tilting her chin to face her. A fire grows behind Bea’s eyes as Ferguson takes a battering ram to every boundary she has erected. _The audacity_ , Bea thinks, digging her fingertips into the leather in front of her, sinewy forearms flexing as she grips the chair top with every effort to keep from leaping over it.

  
“Still, I will require your assistance with –

  
“And if I decline.” Bea cuts her off mid-sentence, and it gives Ferguson the briefest bit of pause.

  
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Ferguson says, turning her chair towards her desktop and moving the mouse to rouse the computer to life.

  
Bea is silent. She’s screaming inside.

  
Ferguson is clicking casually at the keyboard, when she turns her attention back towards Bea.

  
“You may leave.”

  
Bea’s mouth falls open ever so slightly.  
She takes a deep breath and straightens her back before moving towards the Governor’s door and turning the knob, pulling it ajar.

  
“And Smith?”  
  


Bea turns back, curls falling over her shoulder.

  
“We’ll talk again soon.” Ferguson smiles.


	3. Chapter 3

Weeks pass, and each time a guard approaches the unit, or calls her name during work detail, Bea expects it will be Ferguson summoning her to the office for god only knows what favor, sin, betrayal of her girls or herself or… , but it never happens.

Even when Ferguson is in transit between yards, her attention isn’t remotely drawn in Bea’s direction. Bea’s attention, on the other hand…

After a month of radio silence, she requests a meeting with the Governor.

Another week passes, and when she asks, the second time, for an update on the status of her request, Officer Miles tells her, in no uncertain terms, to “Get a life, Smith.”

“Your request has been refused.” Officer Will Jackson says, without looking up from the stack of papers he’s steadily signing and scanning his way through when Bea approaches him later that day.

“For what reason?” Bea asks, stifling a muscle spasm that courses through her arm and trying to posture herself in a way that doesn’t betray any nervous need.

Will looks up, tired. “I don’t know what to tell you, Bea. It’s not up to me.”

She tilts her chin up defiantly and tries to gauge whether her request was ever even advanced.

Will shakes his head wearily. “Governor’s orders,” he says, returning to his papers.

“Ms. Bennett, then.”

“Back to work,” Will says, closing the door to the guard station and effectively ending their conversation.

Bea stands outside the station unmovingly for a moment or two before Will actually shoos her through the glass.

She scoffs as she makes her way back to the laundry.

She’ll be damned if she’s going to spend another month feeling like there’s a ticking time bomb in her chest, like at any moment she’s going to be called up to shatter what semblance of a life, or plan or hope for one, she has built up to carry her through her sentence.


	4. Chapter 4

Deputy Governor Vera Bennett is not altogether certain what’s going on when Will asks her to meet with Smith regarding the Governor’s refusal to meet with her and hear her grievances, demands, …

Vera had read the meeting request - the Reason field was left entirely blank.

She initially assumed Ferguson had refused it on that basis alone.

_Unnecessary_ , Vera can hear the Governor hissing, and she nods to herself, as if in private conversation.   
But something in Ferguson’s behavior of late fails to convince Vera that there isn’t more to it. Something has changed.

_Whatever it is, I’m confident Ms. Ferguson knows what she’s doing_ , Vera thinks to herself as she places her empty lunch bag back in the top portion of her locker.

_Sure_ , Vera would concede that her boss has been looking... almost… _bored_ each time Vera has passed the glass windows of her office. And, _sure_ , she seems agitated and impatient with Vera each time she proffers an update about the women in the yard without mentioning one particular inmate.   
It’s implied that she wants an update on Smith, specifically, without having to ask, specifically, for it.

It seems to Vera that Bea could personally offer her own update, if the Governor would simply allow her access, but, for whatever reason, it doesn’t appear to be in the cards.

Withholding is not an unfamiliar punishment, or motivator, to Vera. She is altogether too aware of its power.

_Surely, Joan,_ Vera smiles as she thinks of how Joan has invited her to dispense with formality and call her that, _well, outside of work_ , she clarifies, nodding to herself again. _Surely, whatever Joan is doing is for the betterment of the women._

Suddenly, she remembers a recent intervention with Boomer and winces. In the wake of Boomer’s recent injury and then disappearance, _a blatant cry for help_ , Joan had summoned her to meet together with Vera in her office.

“Frankie….she never even came forward and expressed her concern, did she, Vera?”

Joan said, laying bait. “No, none of them did.”

Vera’s heart breaks a little just thinking about it.

“None.”

Vera squeezes her eyes tight and sighs, shaking her head in spite of herself.

_These are criminals, Vera, being justly punished for criminal acts. No one forced Boomer’s hand,_ she reasons with herself.

Her bleeding heart pumps loudly in her ears.

“None.”

_I’m… sure… whatever truth Joan may be bending or… turning a blind eye to or… exploiting is… ultimately in the interest of the women._

She opens her eyes and takes a deep breath.   
She straightens her blazer and struts towards the yard, but her brow furrows, unconvinced, even with herself.


	5. Chapter 5

“Mr. Jackson said you’d like to speak with me?” Vera asks on approach.

Bea has a spade in the dirt, working in one of the raised beds in the yard.  
She doesn’t even acknowledge that Vera is speaking to her, so Vera repositions herself opposite, overlooking white roses, craning her neck to coax Bea into making eye contact.

“I understand your request for a meeting with the Governor has been denied. I’m afraid, we just have…” _You’re already in over your head,_ Vera thinks to herself, and blinks tightly. “We just have a lot going on at the moment,” she says, squinching up her nose. “Too much to afford Ms. Ferguson the opportunity to hear individual complaints from inmates.”

Nothing.

“Bea?”

Nothing.

“Have you been able to speak to your Peer Worker?” she asks, genuine concern building on her face.

“Is everything al-“

“No.” Bea says, freeing her hands from the soil and smudging dirt across her forehead, brushing away a bead of perspiration.

“-right, then,” Vera asks, taken aback by Bea’s attitude.

“May I be of service?” she asks, tilting her head inquisitively, if moderately annoyed.

“No, I just… need to speak to… Ms. Ferguson, specifically.” Bea says, stepping back from the bed and swiping again at the sweat on her forehead, pushing it into unruly curls with a garden gloved hand.  
  


Vera pushes her tongue into her bottom lip and blinks, _I’m trying to help you,_ but Bea is resolute.

“Of course.” Vera nods, wetting her lips and smiling again. She blinks.

“I’ll see what I can do, Smith.” She says, lisping over the S before turning on her heel and strutting back across the yard.


	6. Chapter 6

Bea dusts her gloves off on her trackies and watches Ms. Bennett cut across the yard, hands on hips, assuming a more authoritative posture than her unassertive little frame can handle. It’s an effort that results in a gait more reminiscent of a new born colt finding its legs, than a prison Governor, Bea just shakes her head pitiably and tosses the gloves on the raised bed ledge.

Back in her unit, Bea heads directly for her cell.

“You want a cuppa?” Liz calls from the sofa where she and Boomer are knitting, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific playing on the TV, while Liz attempts to extricate Boomer from a snare of yarn.

“Nah, I’m headed to the shower,” Bea says, popping in her cell and grabbing her toiletry kit and towel, sliding into her shower shoes as she heads out. 

“You two look… cozy,” she says, taking a biscuit out of the tin Liz has set out and breaking it in two.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Boomer asks, flustered, hands entangled in an unintentional Jacob’s Ladder.

“Calm down, you’ll make it worse,” Liz soothes, as a crew of women appear on screen, legs dangling into a watering hole, Mitzi Gaynor undressing behind a grass covered door.

“I’m headed to the showers. Got filthy in the yard.” Bea says, turning on her heel.

“Yeah!” Boomer shouts, breathless and struggling to assert herself, “I bet you…”

“What was that, Booms?” Bea turns.

“…did,” she mumbles, twitching her head.

“Now, come on then,” Liz coos, snipping the strings and freeing her.

As Bea hangs her robe and sets her carrier on the tiled floor, she catches a glimpse of the label on her shampoo and decides she’ll skip it, twisting up a fist of long curls and weaving the ends through to secure her hastily made bun.

She turns the tap and steps into a shock of cold water without waiting, gritting her teeth as she lathers soap up her arms and the back of her neck.

It’s not that she’s fiending for Ferguson’s attention. _No fucking way,_ she thinks, getting clean – purging her thoughts of the Governor. _Fuck it,_ she thinks, _I’ll wash that bitch right out of my hair,_ and loosens her curls into the torrent. 


	7. Chapter 7

As she heads to the laundry room for work detail hours later, she catches sight of Ms. Bennett and Ferguson walking hurriedly in her direction, and almost smiles in relief.

It _is_ relief, to be sure, but an unknowing eye might go so far as to interpret it as… elation at the sight of Ferguson’s imposing figure cutting down the corridor.

The Governor is speaking rapidly, forcefully, words spoken as if punched into an ancient typewriter. Worried lines grip Ms. Bennett’s forehead.

“Ms. Ferguson?” Bea calls as they approach. (She nearly goes up on tip toes, nearly breaks a neck reaching with her chin, nearly waves.)

**“Not now, Smith!”** Ms. Bennett barks.

As if in slow motion, still in step with her Deputy, Ferguson turns to grace Bea with her gaze.  
Her eyebrows raise as if surprised before a sinister smile takes hold of her face, eyes narrowing, cocksure.

_I understand you, Smith,_ Bea remembers, as if Ferguson has slipped it to her psychically.  
Expertly, like Bess Houdini slipping a handcuff key into Harry’s mouth in the moments before he’s straitjacketed and dangled head first over some street teeming with loud, writhing spectators.

Bea bites the inside of her cheek, as Ferguson’s dangerously smug expression fades to a coy smirk and then - to **nothing at all**.

The governors pass without so much as slowing, and Bea is left with a mouth tasting of metal.


	8. Chapter 8

“Ooh! Someone’s keen!,” Liz chides, sliding up and bumping Bea with her hip,

“Aww, you know I’m just kidding,” she says, pushing the door to the Laundry open, leaving Bea standing frozen in the hallway, processing her miscalculation.

“Got the hots for the Governor, Red?” Frankie asks, tugging on the braided drawstring of Bea’s hoodie as she passes, catching Liz’s hold of the door.

“Red?”

“Yeah, I’m –“ Bea manages as she heads inside.

_What is she playing at?_ Bea asks herself, narrowing her eyes, mulling over the sum of her and Ferguson’s interactions.

_Simmo wouldn’t lag,_ she thinks, shaking her head.

Bea remembers back to her time in the Slot, in the wake of her incident with Brayden Holt in the Visitors Room, Ferguson stood there in Solitary and said, in no uncertain terms, that Bea’s actions were… understandable, justified, even.

That Brayden was guilty, and that he would never be held accountable.

That justice would never be served in the courts, and, finally, that she was counting on Bea to avoid any further incidents. 

“ _You know, you’re not who you think you are._ ”

Bea shakes her head, clearing Ferguson’s voice.

 _Simmo would **not** have lagged, _she thinks, her eyes compulsively scanning the faces of around her, fervently trying to convince herself that Ferguson hasn’t caught on to the alliance she’s been strengthening with Simmo - Bea’s indefatigable determination to take Brayden out, no matter the cost.

“then Boomer comes strutting in with-“ Liz’s voice is fading in and out of focus, but she is emphatically performing a story that Bea never quite got the thread of, so each time she looks at her directly, Bea just nods enthusiastically. When Liz’s brow furrows, Bea’s follows, and when Liz throws her head back laughing, ….

_Unless –_ Bea considers, as Liz pulls hot, freshly laundered towels out of the dryer and tosses them into the basket in Bea’s arms.

_No, Ferguson doesn’t know anything._

“and I told her it’s just any tick of the clock now, babe. Ain’t that right, Bea?”

The sound of her name wrenches her from her thoughts, and she suddenly realizes that the room is… spinning.

“Bea?” Liz asks, concern etched in her face. “Y’alright, love?”

“Yeah, yeah. I just I think I may need to just… lie down for a minute,” she says as her knees give out, and she catches herself narrowly by the hinge of the dryer door, dropping the basket.

  
“Ms. Miles!” Liz yells.

Bea steadies herself and heads toward the guard station, sealed tight, Miles inside watching the races on her phone with earbuds in.

“Ms. Miles? I need to go back to my unit.” Bea bangs at plexiglass. 

“Yeah, yeah, … got another _urgent_ need to see the Governor, Red?” Frankie shouts from behind steam billowing out of the press she’s operating.

Bea’s head reels as she looks back toward the swirling machines, and tries to find her breath in the horde of women laughing. She tries to bring Frankie’s face, all cruel, dancing eyes and elfin, shit eating grin, into focus, but the room is spinning.

Miles swings the door open, “Jesus Christ, Smith, what is your damage?”

“Have you not heard? Red’s got a critical case of whinging bitch disease.“

“I’m not feeling well. I need to lie down.” Bea managed, as Frankie carries on behind her.

“Then get back to your cell – do I look like I want to be mopping up spew again just because you all can’t manage to get to the toilets in time.”

Bea leans heavy on the door of the Laundry, her wobbly lays carrying her safely back to her unit against all odds.

**Author's Note:**

> this ain't my pairing, but this is my first time writing fic. please be kind and constructive.
> 
> this was a request, and I hope to do it justice for all you people wanting to see this pair together.
> 
> ideas welcome.


End file.
